Grazing The Long Acre Read Free Page A

impression that Earth was a female-ordered society, and she was onto him immediately.
    He defended himself. “Well, you are the captain. And you girls out number us boys. That’s all I meant .”
    “And why do you think that is, Bob?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Could it be statistical? Could it be there are so many more ‘mad’ women scientists available, that with the worst will in the world this transgalactic, political advertisement had to have a female majority? In fact, over all, Bob, I think you’d find there are far more ‘mad’ women about of any persuasion. Able to walk and talk and keep themselves clean, that is. Men have to be doubly incontinent before anyone declares them unemployable or locks them up. “
    “Quiet down!” yelled Nanazetta, banging his dinner tray on a bulkhead. It was mealtime again, of course.
    Shards of mashed potato and bloody beef sailed through the air and landed—splat—because they were not in space now and they all knew it.
    “I’m watching you, Captain Shaw. You’re trying to fuck us up. You’re bad for our morale, Captain. And I’m going to report that, when we get home.”
    “You stupid bastard. None of us is ever going home.”
    “Yes we are, Merle,” Bob broke in quickly (he wished he’d never started this). “When the survey’s done we’re going right back to where and when we started from, we’re going to get debriefed out of the project and go on with our normal lives.”
    “Only richer,” he added heartily, and Sugi cheered.
    Merle seemed to grow calm. Perhaps even she realised she’d gone too far. She smiled a little and nodded.
    “Mmm, yeah. Okay.” She sighed innocently. “You know Bob, I’ve thought of a better name for this place. You ought to call it Duat, not Ma’at. I’m sure you remember. That was the Ancient Eygptian word for heaven.”
    Bob and Sasha and Sugi all began to smile.
    “You know, the place where the dead people go.”
    They stopped smiling.
    The captain snickered unkindly.

    Sasha explored the outskirts of the Ma’atian village, admiring the beautifully tended little patches of subsistence farming. No doubt because of the confusion of that first encounter, she had a persistent impression that the Ma’atians were not the simple primitives they seemed. But there was no real evidence for this fantasy of an advanced, post-industrial idyll. Not that it mattered. She had to admit, Merle had a right to sneer. She and Bob were just playing. They had no way of knowing even whether their ‘notes’ actually found their way into Cheops ‘ records. Still, she couldn’t help looking at this place with greed and awe. A new race! It was riches beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.
    She supposed that must be what the Cheops was thinking too, as it circled around this world. Riches!It was absurd to feel concern for the Ma’atians. No doubt the crowded and hungry Earth would be glad to colonise this lovely place. But there was little danger of imminent invasion. Even apart from the ruinous expense, you wouldn’t get the most desperate colonists to accept the terms the crew of the Cheops had accepted: and the alternative (she had a rough idea of the notional real-time/space element of their voyage so far) would be a journey of several hundred years.
    There was nothing to be done in any case. Sasha, none of them, had any chance of concealing information, of taking any control at all of the mission or their ship. She thought wryly of jeering comments that the first American astronauts had had to endure from their pilot buddies: a monkey’s gonna make the first flight. The Cheops crew were less than monkeys. They travelled on the Cheops like fleas on a dog, though a quite irrational proportion of the finance had been devoted to arranging their passage. Human interest stories always help to raise funds. The ‘experiences’ of the crew would be retrieved and reconstructed as marketing videos. But she had no control even of this ‘suit’